ft 


CHARGES  LONDON  PRESS  MISINFORMS 

AMERICAN  PUBLIC 


BY 

THOMAS  C-  HALL,  D.D. 


Reprint  from  the 
January  17,  1915 


S9 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/chargeslondonpreOOhall 


CHARGES  LONDON  PRESS  MISINFORMS  AMERICAN  PUBLIC. 


Thomas  C.  Hall  Denounces  Their  Attitude  and  Declares  It  the 
Most  Shameful  Era  in  English  History. 


By  THOMAS  C.  HALL,  D.D. 

Americans  resent  the  charge  that  they  are  misinformed  about 
the  world  war.  And  yet  why  do  they  not  look  up  their  past  informa- 
tion in  the  light  of  recent  events?  Do  they  now  pretend  seriously 
to  believe  that  "the  German  Emperor  caused  the  war,"  or  that  the 
Crown  Prince  "forced  the  Emperor  into  war,"  or  that  "Liebknecht 
with  600  Socialists  was  shot  on  the  streets  of  Berlin,"  or  that  "the 
Russian  steam  roller  will  be  in  six  weeks  in  Berlin,"  or  that 
"Germany  is  only  a  historic  memory,"  or  that  "Belgian  children 
are  running  about  with  both  hands  hacked  off,"  or  that  "the  Crown 
Prince  is  killed"  and  "the  Emperor  is  insane"  and  "Breslau  is  taken" 
and  "Krakow  is  burned"?  Yet  all  these  lies  and  a  thousand  more 
they  received  with  a  docile  subjection  from  the  hands  of  a  London 
press,  whose  screaming  yellowness  and  infinite  capacity  for  bragging 
and  untruth  is  one  of  the  most  shameful  novelties  of  this  sad  new 
era  in  English  history. 

German  papers  may  not  even  enter  Canada  or  England.  Yet 
while  I  was  in  Germany  I  read  the  English,  French  and  Dutch 
papers  and  then  passed  them  on  to  eager  German  friends  quite 
freely.  I  have  yet  to  find  a  serious  misstatement  in  any  German 
official  telegram,  or  any  important  omission  of  retreats  or  reverses. 
Have  any  serious-minded  Americans  any  such  confidence  in  "Petro- 
grad"  or  "Paris  Special"  or  the  London  "Colonial  dope,"  as  it  ia 
called  in  London  clubs?  Moreover,  if  any  careful  Americans  will 
take  the  trouble  to  go  over  the  "Berlin  reports"  as  given  to  us  in 
the  papers  and  compare  them  with  the  actual  official  statements 
in  the  Cologne  "Gazette"  or  "Frankfurter  Zeitung"  they  will  be 
warned  of  a  carelessness  or  worse  in  transmission  that  again  justifies 
the  charge  that  we  do  not  know  the  facts.  If  so  grossly  misinformed 
in  the  past  about  the  goings  on  under  our  eyes,  if  we  have  been 
so  carefully  and  deliberately  lied  to  by  our  London  sources,  is  it 
not  just  possible  that  the  trend  and  inner  meaning  of  this  world 
struggle  has  been  equally  misrepresented  to  us?  We  get  our  opinions 
and  our  "facts"  from  the  same  contaminated  sources. 


For  instance,  we  are  taught  day  in  and  day  out  that  Germany 
was  the  aggressor;  and  blue  books,  yellow  books  and  white  books 
are  cited,  though  I  fear  seldom  really  studied,  to  maintain  this 
position.  But  the  official  documents  are  elaborately  edited  to  make 
out  a  case.  Evident  mistranslation  in  some  cases,  and  probable 
mintranslation  in  others,  mars  them  all,  and  in  the  early  reprint 
of  the  English  white  book,  most  widely  used,  there  is  some  mis- 
dating that  looks  like  deliberate  fraud  and  has  misled  one  of  the 
most  widely  read  analyses  of  it.  These  books  do  not  even  pretend 
to  give  all  the  documents,  and  in  fact  only  begin  at  the  end  of  a 
ten  years'  diplomatic  struggle. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  Austria,  emphatically  it  may  be 
maintained,  and  history  will  sustain  the  contention,  that  Germany 
neither  expected  at  this  time  nor  wanted  nor  caused  the  war.  For 
ten  years  Germany  has  been  struggling  in  a  bad  diplomatic  mess 
to  ward  off  from  herself  and  Austria  what  she  knew  was  the  covert 
attack  of  military  cliques  in  France,  Russia,  England  and  Belgium. 
She  has  not  been  well  served  by  her  diplomats.  Germans  have 
known  that  for  some  time.  But  she  supposed  she  had  passed  the 
danger  point  and  was  breathing  freely  in  glad  thankfulness  that 
it  was  so.  M.  Andre  Tardieu,  writing  six  years  before  the  war 
and  from  a  pronouncedly  anti-German  and  pro-French  point  of 
view,  as  he  himself  says  in  his  preface,  remarks:  "England,  who 
if  France  had  been  willing  would  have  made  war  in  1905,  had 
seen  in  Germany's  success  a  fresh  motive  for  acting  in  conjunction 
with  us  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  the  European  balance  of 
power"  ("France  and  Alliances,"  1908,  page  194).  And  Mr.  Tardieu 
hardly  tries  to  disguise  the  fact  that  the  coalition  against  Germany 
was  the  result  of  the  wounded  vanity  of  France,  beaten  at  Sedan: 
of  Russia,  beaten  by  Japan  on  the  plains  of  Manchuria  and  the  field 
of  diplomacy  by  Austria,  and  England,  beaten  by  Germany  on  the 
field  of  commercial  expansion.  These  things  linked  with  the  vanity 
of  Servia's  and  Belgium's  Kings,  who  wanted  to  play  the  part  of 
"World  Powers,"  made  the  war  possible. 

This  same  London  press  has  dinned  into  our  ears  the  "Prussian 
oligarchy."  There  is  no  Prussian  oligarchy.  There  is  a  strong 
Prussian  aristocracy,  whose  influence,  however,  has  been  steadily 
waning,  as  the  records  of  the  Reichstag  abundantly  prove,  and 
whose  power  will  be  still  further  weakened  when  the,  Government's 
promise  has  been  embodied  in  law,  according  to  which  the  three-class 
system  of  voting  in  Prussia  for  the  provincial  assembly  will  be 
abolished. 

The  empire  itself  was  founded  on  manhood  suffrage,  and  the 
cities  of  Germany  have  more  independence  and  more  democracy 
than  New  York,  and  are  infinitely  better,  more  cheaply  and  more 
justly  governed.  Prussia  is,  in  fact,  only  one  of  the  confederate 
States,  with  Bavaria,  Wuerttemberg,  Saxony,  etc.,  as  sister  States, 
bound  together  as  our  States  are  by  a  constitution  and  a  Senate 
(Bundesrath),  and  the  Emperor  has  in  some  respects  less  power 


than  we  have  given  the  President,  and  the  ruling  sovereigns  of  the 
confederate  States  are  his  allies,  not  his  vassals.  To  talk  of  any 
oligarchy  in  Germany  is  to  display  gross  and  inexcusable  ignorance. 

What  men  in  London  dislike  is  not  miltarism,  but  German 
efficiency.  Lord  Roberts  was,  and  Lord  Kitchener  is,  far  more  of 
a  militarist  than  Eernhardi  ever  aspired  to  be.  Will  England  give 
up  her  navy  and  Russia  and  France  their  armies  if  Germany 
abandons  her  "militarism"?  Russia  was  bullying  France  into  a 
three  years'  military  system,  and  France  was  insisting  that  Russia 
raise  her  army  to  eight  millions  and  rebuild  her  navy  as  a  condition 
of  the  "peaceful  alliance."  And  England  has  had  her  "two  Power 
standard"  for  her  navy.  These  are  nice  angels  of  peace  to  talk 
piously  of  German  militarism! 

How  many  who  are  horrified  at  Bernhardi  or  Treitzske  have 
really  read  either  of  these  men  and  really  know  what  they  stand 
for?  They  are  indeed  free  from  some  of  our  ingrained  "homage  our 
vices  pay  to  virtue,"  but  there  is  not  an  opinion  expressed  on  force 
and  war  that  could  not  be  matched  with  a  hundred  quotations  from 
English  and  American  sources,  including  such  apostles  of  peace 
as  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  and  Lord  Roberts.  Both  men, 
however,  knew  what  they  were  talking  about  and  do  not  pretend 
that  a  pagan  world  about  us  is  really  governed  by  Christian 
principles. 

Can  any  sensible  American  listen  with  patience  while  the 
London  press  teaches  us  that  an  army  made  up  of  the  flower  of 
Germany's  educated  manhood  in  which  professors  of  world-wide 
fame  serve  as  privates  and  non-commissioned  officers  and  in  which 
there  is  no  illiteracy  and  no  intemperance  is  a  "horde  of  barbarians" 
in  comparison  to  an  army  of  Turkos,  Sikhs,  London  down-and-outs, 
Gurkhas,  Cossacks,  Tartars  from  the  Amur  River,  Japanese,  Tunis- 
lam  Arabs  and  negroes  from  the  Sahara?  And  that  civilization 
depends  on  the  victory  of  Russia's  illiterate  and  drunken  peasantry 
under  the  command  of  the  corrupt,  arrogant  and  brutal  autocracy 
whose  leading  spirit  is  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas-Nicholaievitch? 

Oh,  but  Belgium  —  that  innocent  suffering  country!  And  the 
broken  treaties!  Germany  broke  no  treaty  that  was  indisputably 
binding  upon  anybody.  For  the  conditions  of  the  treaty  of  1839 
with  the  Prussian  Union  had  hopelessly  changed  and  England  had 
in  1870  recognized  that  fact.  Moreover  Belgium  was  not  neutral. 
She  had  entered  into  one-sided  and  secret  military  arrangements 
which  liberated  Germany  from  all  moral  obligation  save  those  gen- 
eral rights  of  a  neutral  power  which  Germany  promised  to  restore 
uninjured  and  to  pay  an  indemnity  for  all  wrong  done.  Exactly 
the  same  attitude  was  taken  by  England  in  Delagoa  Bay  when  she 
marched  through  a  country  whose  neutrality  she  had  herself  guar- 
anteed to  strike  the  Boers  in  the  back.  And  so  also  Japan  forced 
her  way  through  neutral  China,  whose  neutrality  she  had  herself 
repeatedly  guaranteed,  in  order  to  strike  Tsing-tao  behind. 


5 


The  cant  and  hypocrisy  of  the  London  press  is  sickening. 
How  did  England  treat  neutral  Egypt?  How  has  she  kept  her  own 
solemn  promises  to  evacuate,  given  time  and  time  again,  only  to 
be  recklessly  broken.  It  is  rank  cant  to  blame  Germany  for  doing 
what  every  country  would  do  if  national  safety  seemed  to  require  it. 
That  Belgium  has  suffered  horribly  is  England's  fault.  England 
could  have  exacted  the  offered  guarantee  of  Germany  to  respect 
Belgium's  integrity,  autonomy  and  sovereignty  and  pay  her  compen- 
sation for  the  injury  done  her.  Belgium  could  have  saved  herself 
by  accepting  the  offer  of  peace  and  indemnity  made  her  by  Germany 
after  the  fall  of  Luettig  and  Namur.  England  promised  a  protection 
she  should  have  known  she  could  not  give,  and  her's  is  the  blame 
for  Belgium's  blasted  national  life.  Hers  are  already  the  curses  of 
more  than  one  thoughtful  Belgian. 

Surely  Bernard  Shaw  has  awakened  even  ignorant,  provincial, 
easy-going  Americans  to  the  hypocrisy  in  England's  claim  of  high 
ethical  motive  for  going  to  war.  She  was  justified  in  not  wanting 
Germany  on  the  coast  opposite  her.  Why  does  she  not  simply  say 
so  and  stop  her  cant?  Her  real  interest  is,  however,  deeper.  This 
war  was  to  exterminate  a  commercial  rival  and  "Made  in  Germany" 
is  the  real  cause  of  England's  attitude.  Why  does  not  England 
frankly  say  so  and  gain  again  her  self-respect? 

Well,  but  Austria's  peremptory  note  and  short  time  for  con- 
sideration; surely  had  Austria  waited  diplomacy  could  have  settled 
the  matter!  Perhaps,  but  that  was  just  what  Austria  could  not 
afford  to  have  happen.  Her  political  place  in  Europe  depended 
upon  her  sharp,  swift  punishment  of  the  dastardly  crime  against 
her  sovereign  house.  We  in  America  acted  toward  Mexico  on  far 
less  provocation  with  far  more  severity  and  sharpness.  We  avenged 
an  insult  to  our  sailors  by  sending  a  fleet  and  occupying  a  town. 
What  would  have  happened  had,  let  us  say,  Mexicans  murdered 
our  President?  Moreover,  Russia  has  absolutely  no  material  interest 
to  protect  in  Servia  that  Austria  has  not  guaranteed  to  protect. 
She  asked  neither  land  nor  any  abrogation  of  sovereignty.  The 
fact  is  both  Servia  and  Belgium  are  not  the  causes  but  the  mere 
occasions  of  the  war.  The  causes  are  the  aggressions  of  Russia, 
or  rather  of  her  predatory  autocracy.  There  is  no  hypocrisy  about 
their  plans.  They  have  frankly  waged  war  after  war  to  gain  an 
ice- free  harbor  and  Austria  was  in  their  way  to  the  south  over  the 
Balkans,  as  Japan  barred  the  way  to  the  east  over  Manchuria  and 
Corea.  This  ambition  of  Russia's  autocracy,  together  with  the 
wounded  vanity  of  France,  has  given  England  her  chance  to  revive 
her  old  time-honored  policy  of  fighting  any  rival  on  the  sea. 

Germany  does  quite  properly  aspire  to  be  a  "Weltmacht,"  but 
it  is  ignorance  or  worse  to  try  and  translate  that  by  "world 
dominion."  Germany  was  not  really  a  world  Power  up  to  1870; 
since  then  she  has  become  one  of  the  world's  foremost  Powers. 
That  she  be  given  her  rightful  place  in  the  commercial  and  intel- 
lectual development  of  the  world  is  all  she  asks  and  she  was  quite 


6 


content  with  the  peaceful  progress  she  was  making;,  but  her  relatively 
incompetent  enemies  were  not.  That  is  the  real  reason  of  the  war. 
A  nation  of  67,000,000,  prosperous,  advancing  and  centented,  does 
not  recklessly  challenge  the  whole  Western  world  to  battle.  Germain- 
has  nothing  she  could  possibly  gain  at  all  comparable  to  her 
inevitable  losses. 

Has  England  protected  Belgium?  Has  Russia  shielded  the 
sovereignty  and  dignity  of  Servia?  If  so,  surely  no**e  of  us  want 
to  be  protected  in  just  that  way.  Had  Russia  and  England  really 
been  bent  only  on  the  high  altruistic  mission  of  protecting  weaker 
States  they  could  have  reached  their  end  more  easily  and  with 
less  ruin  to  the  protected  ones.  Were  the  Allies  now  to  be  victorious 
Servia  and  Belgium  would  come  out  of  the  war  as  humble  vassal 
States  of  Russia  and  England,  for  even  France  will  be  too  weak 
for  a  generation,  if  indeed  ever  again,  to  play'  alone  the  part  of 
a  great  Power. 

Lord  Beaconsfield  is  said  to  have  remarked  of  Gladstone  that 
he  always  played  politics  with  false  cards  up  his  sleeve  and  was, 
moreover,  firmly  persuaded  that  the  Holy  Ghost  put  them  there. 
England  could  not  rob  Holland  of  her  navy,  or  France  of  her 
commerce  and  colonies,  or  the  Boers  of  their  gold  and  diamond 
mines  without  a  pious  prayer  to  heaven  and  a  noble  ethical  reason 
on  her  lips.  And  so  to-day  she  is  picking  Germany's  pocket  while 
Germany  defends  herself  against  Russia  and  France,  and  religious 
England  has  solemnly  to  persuade  herself  that  she  only  wants  the 
Gurkhas  to  sun  themselves  in  Potsdam  in  order  to  wean  dear 
Germany  from  Nietzsche  and  militarism.  The  gullible  American 
people  has  been  fooled,  but  England  cannot  fool  God  or  future 
history. 

What  as  a  matter  of  fact  has  the  attitude  of  political  England 
been  to  the  United  States?  There  are  two  Euglands.  One  is  the 
England  of  our  love  and  tradition,  the  England  of  the  poets  and 
painters  with  her  religious  and  democratic  services  to  all  mankind. 
But  we  also  know,  alas,  another  England.  This  is  the  England 
that  forced  us  into  rebellion  because  she  saw  us  gaining  the  carrying 
trade  to  the  West  Indies,  which  she  wanted.  This  is  the  England 
that  forced  on  us  the  war  of  1812  and  burned  Washington  because 
she  dreaded  the  swift  ships  that  outstripped  her  own.  This  is  the 
England  that  fitted  out  raiding  vessels  to  prey  upon  our  commerce 
while  North  and  South  were  at  each  other's  throats;  the  England 
that  even  led  by  Gladstone  hoped  for  the  success  of  slavery  and 
the  severance  of  the  Union,  because  she  dreaded  so  strong  a  rival 
overseas.  This  is  the  England  that  under  Sir  Edward  Grey  has 
lashed  the  middle  class  of  England  in  its  provincial  blindness  to 
hate  of  Germany  and  love  of  Russia  and  Japan  in  the  name  of 
freedom  and  civilization!  The  sordid  fears  and  wretched  short- 
sightedness of  this  England  will  lead  some  day  to  her  sad  undoing, 
to  the  world's  great  loss  and  the  sorrow  of  us  all. 


7 


France  and  England  have  both  attacked  the  United  States. 
Both  have  tried  to  take  adantage  of  critical  moments  in  our  history 
to  stab  us  in  the  back.  France  dreamed  of  a  Mexican  rival  to  us. 
Germany  alone  of  the  three  has  been  our  consistent  friend.  How  many 
thousands  of  Germans  marched  with  the  armies  of  the  North  as 
compared  with  the  tens  of  Englishmen?  England  hired  Hessians 
to  fight  us,  but  Frederick  the  Great  sent  us  almost  our  salvation 
in  Baron  von  Steuben.  To-day  no  more  peaceful  and  useful  class 
in  the  community  exists  than  those  of  German  blood.  Yet  at  the 
bidding  of  a  yellow  London  press  we  are  being  taught  that  the 
most  highly  organized,  the  least  illiterate,  the  most  civilized  and 
musical  and  art-loving  nation  in  Europe  is  a  nation  of  brutes, 
barbarians,  wanton  vandals  and  ambitious  Huns.  Were  the  situation 
not  so  shameful  and  dangerous  one  could  afford  to  ignore  it  with 
a  smile  of  contempt;  but  it  is  a  very  dangerous  situation.  We  have 
been  lied  to  so  consistently  that  we  have  forgotten  that  Germany 
may  triumphantly  win,  and  that  then  among  us  an  insulted,  proud 
and  united  German  political  party  can  with  help  from  Ireland  lead 
the  Scandinavian,  Polish  and  Austro-Hungarian  vote  in  an  anti- 
English  and  anti-Japanese  movement,  whose  outcome  no  man  can 
foresee.  That  vote  is  at  least  representative  of  25,000,000  and  will 
have  much  silent  support  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  —  and 
may  at  any  time  hold  the  balance  of  power.  Germany  can  now 
hardly  be  crushed.  A  competent  expert  says  it  would  take  an  army  of 
5,000,000  to  reconquer  the  fifth  of  France  and  the  whole  of  Belgium 
against  the  forces  of  Germany,  and  that  it  would  be  a  two  to  three 
years'  work  at  least.  Germany  cannot  be  starved  out.  She  and 
Austria-Hungary  are  self-supporting,  and  have,  moreover,  Holland, 
Norway,  Sweden,  Italy,  Belgium  and  part  of  France  to  fall  back 
upon.  She  can  hold  out  for  seven  to  ten  years — can  Russia  do 
that,  or  France? 

Where  has  "militarism"  led  the  British  censorship?  What  has 
England  to  show  to  correspond  to  all  the  loud-mouthed  bragging 
of  Churchill  and,  alas,  Lloyd  George?  What  will  sensible  English- 
men say  to  it  all  when  the  pressure  of  war  is  taken  away  and 
they  can  freely  speak  their  minds?  And  will  not  Americans  be 
shamed  by  their  admissions,  already  being  made  more  freely  than 
the  London  censorship  permits  the  crowd  to  know,  seeing  we  have 
almost  out-Englished  England  in  vulgar  abuse  of  one  of  the  best 
elements,  in  our  life,  or  indeed  in  the  life  of  the  world? 


6 


